In biotechnology a high number of experiments is required for drug discovery, for the study of various kinds of interactions between numerous components of a biological system like cells or components of cells, or for the validation of experiments and discoveries.
High throughput approaches increase the number of experiments significantly, yielding huge data volumes to be managed, processed, analyzed and studied. In many applications, the comparison of multiple data sets or experimental data from diverse experiments is required.
In such cases and when the number of data points representing such comparisons exceeds the human capability of rapid or easy appreciation and interpretation, improved visual representation is required in order to analyze the data and their results.
A very common tool is the representation of data in graphical form. For example, there is known to represent gene expression level data in form of a so called scatter plot, wherein two datasets to be compared are embedded in one graph (as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,420,108). By this means it is possible to visually inspect the data sets for further analysis and interpretation. The analysis of data can be further enhanced by computer support. For example, the user can select a data point within the graphic by a mouse click, which then triggers a display of the underlying data in terms of its sequence, whereas the data points in question may be retrieved from a specific data base.
A scatter plot is an acceptable form of data visualization when the number of data points is reasonably limited relative to the resolution of the graphic and the resolution of the image screen. For example, the presence of 1000 data points at a screen resolution of 800×600 pixels will create visual problems to the user in cases where data points are very close to each other or even do overlap.
Also, researchers are only interested in those data points which have the lowest or the highest distance to the shared inner axis of a scatter plot. However the data points of a scatter plot cannot be sorted so as to highlight data points having e.g., lowest or highest distance to the inner axis. Furthermore there is no possibility to blend out or hide data points which are not of interest, e.g., those showing the same expression level in both of two samples, by defining certain thresholds for data points to be displayed.
Prior art technology embedded in computer systems is using data files as the source of displayed data, coding means based upon a single screen display in combination with interactive events, such as mouse clicks, mouse over event handling, triggered events such as optical feedback (change of color, increased or decreased light intensity), tactile or acoustical feedback or other means of program response to the user within the screen display.
The graphics representation as described in the prior art cannot fulfill a speedy process, does not provide for sophisticated data highlighting/sorting and setting of display threshold values, nor are multiple screens at the same time ensuring proper synchronization of data in quasi real time.